[Mage] 5.1 PTR Discussion

Hey all,

as Patch 5.1 is getting nearer I fear that random threads might become prolific and many of them would cover basically the same points and issues, so I've taken the liberty to start this thread as a focus of our discussions. Copied from the Patch notes:

Mage

The damage buff from Arcane Charges has been increased from 22% to 24%.

Rune of Power's duration now shows in the UI, and no longer has a cooldown (was 6 seconds).

Ring of Frost now has a 45 second cooldown, up from 30 seconds, and can no longer affect more than 10 targets.

The duration of Deep Freeze has been reduced to 4 seconds.

Frost Bomb will now detonate after 6 seconds, up from 5 seconds). Detonation speed is still affected by haste.

Mage Armor now reduces the duration of harmful Magic effects by 25%, down from 35%).

The damage absorbed by Ice Barrier has been reduced by 25%.

Combustion's periodic damage is now based only on the current Ignite, instead of both Ignite and Pyroblast. Damage has been increased to bring it up to approximately the same level as before.

Blazing Speed may now be triggered after recieving damage in any amount.

The mana cost of Spellsteal has been increased to 21% of base mana for Fire and Frost mages, up from 7%.

Water Elemental

(REMOVED) New Pet Ability: Water Jet. Water Jet channels a jet of frigid water at the target, dealing Frost damage over 4 seconds. Frostbolts cast by the pet's owner that hit the target while it is being blasted with icy water will grant a charge of Fingers of Frost. This ability has a 24 second cooldown (shared with Freeze) and a 1 second cast time.

An additional bit that will affect our enchanting choices:

Come patch 5.1, Dancing Steel and Jade Spirit will be 2 Real PPM, River's Song will be 4 Real PPM, and Colossus will be 6 Real PPM

Also a tiny bit that's significant for pvp:

A new banner will appear when a player is subjected to an effect that causes them to lose control of their character. The effect that caused the loss of control and remaining duration will be displayed. Configuration options are available in the “Combat” section of the “Interface Options" menu.

---------- Post added 2012-11-14 at 11:44 PM ----------

I'll also start off by saying that I'm overjoyed about the Arcane buff, while it's not a real fix as we've discussed in a separate thread, but I also agree with (I think) Soulstrike that the buff should be enough to bump us back up in the competitive race.

The Rune of Power change is good and I can assure you that Blizzard will never remove the cast time on it, because the cast time and standing in it is kind of the entire point of the spell.

The pvp nerfs sadden me as I didn't consider them to be that powerful, but if they're nerfing hunter and warrior burst, I can also live with the Ice Barrier nerf.

They finally decided to go with the Spellsteal change I've been dreading of since they originally announced it a long time ago and then changed their minds countless times.

The removed pet ability is something that's a great loss in my opinion because it could have provided a nice dose of stability to the Frost spec.

Ultimately, I'd rather currently not discuss the long gone Invocation change if it's not entirely necessary.

Eh. Nothing that effects me too much. Interested to see how the combustion change plays out. Disappointed Water Jet is out too, but so it goes. Hopefully they address 90 talent issues a little more as well, though the RoP change is nice.

Wondering where the Arcane changes are (2% more damage is a bandaid change that doesn't really fix anything) but I'm not quite so dramatic as to imply I'm going to change class over this, the other two specs are perfectly fine.

Fire is the only "fine" spec imho. Frost is not as competitive as fire, suffering disadvantages by its mechanics: Not enough cleave, too less output for a "direkt damage spec", less benefit from invocation than fire, way lower procchances on enchants, trinkets etc. (execpt NT, but a very small damage tick for frost bomb and very small ticks between the big ones for LB should fix this). Ramp up mechanic for frost is a pain in the *** if you have to switch a lot between targets during an encounter and few things more I can´t remember at the moment.

*Edit* I think a dot effect for ice lance and bf ffb would be nice change. 70% direct damage and 30% over 3 - 6 seconds for example.

Wondering where the Arcane changes are (2% more damage is a bandaid change that doesn't really fix anything) but I'm not quite so dramatic as to imply I'm going to change class over this, the other two specs are perfectly fine.

Dramatic? The Level 90 talents have made the class simply un-fun for me.

They weren't added in 5.1 though, and they are unlikely to change a great deal from their current incarnations because limiting a mage's ability to move is entirely the point of their implementation and why IW is so hard to utilize properly compared to the other two.
If you were expecting them to be heavily revamped in the first content patch I'm afraid that was probably never going to happen. If Blizzard wanted to change them they would have done so after the response in Beta, as they haven't it is pretty clear that they are pretty happy with how they work even if many players are not.

Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Did the mage change to Invocation not make it in this last PTR patch?
Not sure we're going to change it. Mages might stop Evocating ever. (Source)

So if I'm reading this right
It means the new 90 talent will be either something so good that nobody will ever use ring or incanter's, or its gonna be so shitty that the already shitty ring and incanter's is gonna be the only choice.
The chances of something fun and viable are slim because they'd still want use to use the other crap talents.

There's only 2 changes that aren't for PvP concern (even if they affect PvE):

Arcane Charge's bonus buff is for making it more viable.

Rune of Power's change is more a band-aid to use it a little more easily (tracking duration).

If I take into account these to things, I think that Blizzard have began to think that there's a problem with mage and they will working on it now that they have finish working on Warlock (troll inside).

Conclusion: soon, it will be time to discuss mage talent/glyph/gameplay. What is good/fun and what isn't.

Fire is the only "fine" spec imho. Frost is not as competitive as fire, suffering disadvantages by its mechanics: Not enough cleave, too less output for a "direkt damage spec", less benefit from invocation than fire, way lower procchances on enchants, trinkets etc. (execpt NT, but a very small damage tick for frost bomb and very small ticks between the big ones for LB should fix this). Ramp up mechanic for frost is a pain in the *** if you have to switch a lot between targets during an encounter and few things more I can´t remember at the moment.

*Edit* I think a dot effect for ice lance and bf ffb would be nice change. 70% direct damage and 30% over 3 - 6 seconds for example.

I obtained a few Top3 and some Top10 worldoflogs 10m results with frost. At the moment, we are not enough players to progress properly. For example: We had a farm run last and current ID MSV heroic with only 9 players. With frost we wiped at 1 - 3% on Garajal and I did around 95k DPS. With fire I did 115k - too bad Logs from other players count correctly on that fight - that is a difference of ~7 million damage. Maybe not a big impact on 25m, but on 10m its huge! Same story with Stone Guard and Feng heroic.
On blade lord Ta`yak I decided to switch to fire till they fix or revamp frost. Dots ticking during unseen strike, as frost you`re only option is to run around (played correctly or not). It´s very simple, dot classes have an advantage on nearly every encounter.